


no way out of this mess

by abovemvthroat



Series: roses [2]
Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: Alternate Ending, Breakup, Death, M/M, anyway sorry for this, i wrote it with death in mind but not everyone likes fics like that so, idk it's up to you really, soulmates!dalkenzie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-05-31 12:22:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6469915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abovemvthroat/pseuds/abovemvthroat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>but as usual, there was nothing familiar. nothing that called to him like love once had. like happiness once had. two things that had once come so easily to him. even before dalton. but now those had been shut off. gone, probably wherever dalton was. and where that was mackenzie couldn't be sure, but all that mattered was that it wasn't here.</i> </p><p>or, dalton is gone and mack still hasn't figured out how to live without half his soul </p><p> <i>optional part two to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/6504694">roses are red (most of the time)</a></i></p>
            </blockquote>





	no way out of this mess

**Author's Note:**

> sad, terrible alternate ending/part two (i guess?) to [roses are red (most of the time)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6504694) bc i feel like it. like i said in the tags, i wrote it as death but you can pretend it's a breakup if you want 
> 
> {lowercase intended ~ title based on roses by mackenzie bourg}

nobody could fault mackenzie for the way he acted these days. it was something everybody understood.

or claimed to. no one he knew had actually gone through it. but it was the same as anything bad in life - "i'm sorry, i understand, take however long you need." they didn't understand, that was a lie. sure, maybe they were truly sorry. but it didn't matter. they were just words all the same. just things people said to make themselves feel better. good for them, they comforted the broken boy. their good deed for the day. but let them feel good about themselves for a little while. they didn't matter.

the only one who didn't fill the silence with stupid empty words was trent, who'd never gotten around to moving out like he'd planned. he knew better than to try to make mackenzie feel better. he knew better than to try to do anything but let him be alone with his feelings, or lack thereof.

today was no different. noises of trent moving around in the small apartment waking him up from whatever fragile sleep he'd finally found during the early hours of the morning. a quiet knock on the door to let mack know there was coffee in the kitchen and he was leaving. the muffled shut of the front door a few minutes later. silence.

he opened his eyes. saw the wall he'd become too familiar with in the better part of three months. and the memories started replaying right on cue like a movie, a private showing of his own personal heartache at the same scheduled time every day.

_"that's the worst possible color you could've picked." the effect of the insult was lost in dalton's laugh. mack faked a hurt expression and only made dalton laugh harder. "i didn't even pay attention, i just grabbed it, you were rushing me!" and couldn't help but smile. dalton's laugh had that effect on him, on everyone. focus shifted from dalton to the wall where he'd painted a small line of color, some horrible silvery blue whose sample bottle he'd absentmindedly thrown into the cart before dalton practically dragged him home in a rush to get some kind of color on their apartment walls._

_"can you get it off?" dalton looked half serious now. "we can paint over it, hand me another one." dalton, nearly knocking over half the bottles in the process, picked out another color and slid it across the floor. mack rolled his eyes and caught it before it could collide with the wall. caught glimpse of that stupid innocent smile he loved and knew in that moment that his heart was beating solely for that boy, that every breath in his lungs was entirely for the sake of another minute seeing dalton smile._

the walls ended up being light gray. which mack had fought, saying that was too gloomy and that they should have something happier. but as usual, dalton got his way. because dalton's happiness was too important to mack for him to waste time caring about something like the color of the walls.

at least that much was true. that mack always put dalton first, always wanted him to be happy no matter what. the one thing that ever came close to comforting mack in the back of his mind was that he had no reason to have any regrets. he'd always done everything he could to make dalton as happy as he deserved to be.

 _stop staring at the wall_ , he'd tell himself. he'd think it a million times, the words running through his mind but failing to stick or cast meaning anywhere. _why?_ felt better. who cared if he stared at the wall? the wall didn't care. he didn't care. trent wasn't here to make him get up. so why?

but he forced himself to sit up and dug the heels of his palms into his eyes before the only valid reason could enter his thoughts, the reason beginning with _dalton would want-_ because that hurt more than the color of the walls.

so he did, he forced himself to sit up, to get out of bed, to walk past all the picture frames lying face down on the dresser and the closet that stayed unopened as if it weren't there and didn't hold things that could break mackenzie down further.

in the kitchen he considered coffee. trent didn't drink coffee. but he made it every morning for mack in hopes he would drink something other than water and alcohol (mainly the latter). mack rarely touched it, and he always retreated back into his room before trent got home so he could avoid the stabbing guilt of seeing him throw it out. funny how his feelings worked now. couldn't feel love, or anger, or sadness, and happiness was out of the question. but things like guilt had no problem making an appearance.

trent deserved so much better than that. dalton would never do something like that.

mack blocked the thought out as much as he could and decided to not be a terrible person today and drink the coffee. coffee was always a bit of a double-edged sword now. especially how trent made it. had always made it. even before.

maybe he drank it partly for trent's sake and partly to cause himself more pain. he'd never been like that before, the kind to want to cause himself or anyone else pain. but when you get used to something you start to crave it after a while, he'd found. and it was better than feeling nothing.

_dalton always made coffee first thing in the morning. well, to be perfectly honest, he usually persuaded mackenzie to make it. especially since mack was usually awake first. wake up, wake dalton up with taps on the nose and forehead kisses, make coffee, drag dalton out of bed. his morning routine that never got old, never anything less than what he'd always wanted. be up before trent (usually), nag him into taking an umbrella ("it's not even raining" "one day it will be and you'll be thankful for me, so shut up") because mack was_ that _person. wait for dalton to finally come out of their room and join the world of the living, another kiss pressed to his forehead when he handed the younger boy his coffee, more sickeningly sweet, disgustingly perfect domestic bliss._

no one ever changed that routine, because it was perfect. no one but dalton.

mack was sick of listening to his own thoughts, sick of doing nothing. for once maybe he'd be able to shock trent by telling him he went outside. saw another human being. maybe even did something productive like buying milk. dalton hated milk.

mack set his coffee mug down on the counter with a little more force than necessary and made himself stop thinking about anything at all. he just wanted to go through the motions, his old motions, the motions of a normal human being, and get dressed and leave this damn apartment for a little while.

he couldn't decide if it was tendrils of anger beginning to grip him through whatever haze he'd been wrapped up in for so long, or if the effects of being cooped up in a tiny apartment for so long were starting to get to even him. whatever it was, it was pushing him to _do_ something so it couldn't be all bad.

within a half hour, there was blinding 9 am sun in mack's eyes and the familiar but unfamiliar feeling of the sidewalk under his feet. there were people _everywhere_. maybe this had been a terrible idea. he stupidly hadn't thought of the people he'd have to encounter if he left the safety of the apartment.

everywhere. they were everywhere. not just regular people, but _them_. and he was tempted to run back inside all the way to his room and lock the doors. but instead he just kept his eyes trained on the ground, he wouldn't see _them_ or their _other halves_ or their _tattoos_ if he didn't look anywhere but down.

down, down at the ground, at his shoes (which he noticed now were dalton's and he wanted to break down in the middle of the street), at his jeans, at his wrists. his wrist. he turned it up slightly, to study it.

he hardly noticed when his tattoo was gone. hardly noticed how it gradually faded from the strong dark lines of dalton's name to a barely noticeable silver outline to nothing. that happened when a soulmate bond broke. he'd learned about it in school. remembered hearing it and looking down and tracing the lines of _dalton_ that had been there across the inside of his wrist as long as he could remember, the voice of his teacher fading out to make room for thoughts of what his soulmate might be like. when he'd meet them. what colors looked like.

he did notice when the world turned dark again. that was the first thing he noticed after.

_they'd been here before, this very street. there was that blonde hair that he loved so much. he wove his way through the throngs of people to the boy with said blonde hair and pecked him on the cheek. dalton jumped slightly and then realized it was mack. smiled his beautiful smile, inched closer, curled his fingers through mack's. happiness sparked through mack so violently his heart almost hurt. but the best kind of hurt, the kind of hurt that came with loving something too much for your own good. and mack never wanted that hurt to fade._

and now every time he saw blonde hair a small piece of him still sparked with happiness, only to burn out again when his stupid heart finally remembered what his brain kept trying to tell it. even today, he'd seen three people with blonde hair and he wanted to scream at them and at himself and at the world. he hated blonde hair.

or what looked like blonde hair anyway. it was just white now. everything was white and varying shades of gray and black again. like dalton never even existed. it felt like mackenzie never existed. like he didn't now and wouldn't again.

some people said having a soulmate gave you purpose, and some said that was an exaggeration. mackenzie agreed with the former. or he had ever since he'd found his. and especially after. what was that quote? "love is one soul living in two bodies." that seemed about right. it was when he'd met dalton that they'd stopped being just dalton and just mackenzie and become _dalton and mackenzie_.

so that quote was right. and those people were wrong. that person was everything. so it was hard to think of them as anything but your purpose. dalton had always been his.

and maybe that made him pathetic, he didn't really care. he couldn't even remember what caring felt like right now. it was like someone had turned out the light in his soul and he was stuck aimlessly wandering around trying to grab onto something familiar in the dark.

but as usual, there was nothing familiar. nothing that called to him like love once had. like happiness once had. two things that had once come so easily to him. even before dalton. but now those had been shut off. gone, probably wherever dalton was. and where that was mackenzie couldn't be sure, but all that mattered was that it wasn't here.

still standing here, he was still standing here, staring at the ground. how long he'd been here, he didn't know. it felt like seconds and minutes and hours all at the same time. he noticed he was digging his fingernails into his palms then, stopped, thought about how dalton always told him not to do that. he dug them in again to spite dalton, to spite everything.

another memory of school came back. more about soulmate bonds. "you lose your colorsight, your tattoo fades, and it may be one of the most painful experiences of your life." _colorsight loss, tattoo fading, pain_. he'd made them memorize it. mack had always liked his teacher. he was the only teacher who took extra time to make sure every kid understood soulmates and everything that came along with them. mack used to think maybe something happened to his teacher's soulmate. and that maybe that was why he wanted them to be so prepared for what could happen, and why he always looked so sad when he talked about it.

now he was almost sure something happened. and he wondered what ever happened to that teacher. if he ever turned out okay. he'd heard stories of some people who couldn't bear losing their soulmates, who'd turned to alcohol or drugs or darker vices to deal with the pain of the missing part of their soul. because that's what a soulmate was, a piece of your soul entwined in theirs and vice versa.

he wouldn't do that, he wasn't that kind of person. what had he turned to then? something was wrong with him. maybe he'd just turned to nothing, to emptiness. it felt like it.

_dalton wouldn't want-_

he didn't _give_ a damn. didn't give a damn what he'd want because he wasn't here and he wasn't coming back and nothing would change that. he wished his mind would shut up, stop telling him things he already knew. he didn't care. he didn't care, he didn't care, he didn't care. he hated him, he would find a way to hate him, because hate was so much easier than hurt.

_"i hate you!" dalton had yelled through giggles, pinned to the couch, mack tickling him and shouting over him "you do not, you love me, say it" and looking down in awe at the beautiful sight of dalton laughing and out of breath, eyes an even brighter, more spectacular blue than usual. dalton grabbed mack by the shoulders and pulled him down then, kissed him like his life and everything he had depended on it, took mack by such surprise that he forgot what he'd even been saying or doing, his hands dropping to the couch to brace himself as he leaned further into the kiss. until dalton pulled back just enough to whisper "fine, i love you," still close enough that their lips brushed when he spoke. and mack just smiled, and returned the sentiment, and pecked his nose, which elicited another giggle from the younger boy, and they spent a little longer like that, too wrapped up in each other to care about anything outside their own little world they'd created there in that apartment._

he couldn't do it, he wanted to do it but he knew that would never happen. he wished he could hate dalton for leaving him, wanted to hate him with everything he had left in his pathetic heart. but he could feel hate about as well as love or anything else, so still there was just nothing there.

mack didn't know how long he stood there before he decided to just sit on the steps. fresh air was still fresh air, even if he could barely leave his own building to get it. he still kept his eyes on the sidewalk, counting cracks and ants and anything to keep his mind busy long enough for him to feel like he'd been outside a reasonable amount of time before going back in to hide for who knew how long.

he stayed longer than he'd thought. what felt like a few hours had apparently turned out to be seven because eventually he felt a hand on his shoulder and jerked back before realizing it was trent home from work. he looked worried, so worried, and mack felt like shit for putting that expression on his best friend's face. especially when trent worried about mack plenty enough already on a daily basis without having to be afraid he'd start wandering off during the day. mack just stood up and followed trent back into the building, neither of them saying a word.

and it stayed that quiet until they got back to their apartment, and trent made mackenzie sit on the couch and tell him what happened. and mack could only think about how sad it was, how sad that his going outside worried his roommate because it was that out of character. he'd never felt sorrier for trent.

after a while trent gave up trying to get a story out of mackenzie. all he'd say was he just wanted to go outside. and it was true. but more had happened than that. and trent knew that. but mack didn't want trent to have those details, details of just how bad off he was. he could find out later, once mack was himself again. he just wish he knew how long that'd take.

he didn't notice when trent left the room, was too caught up in thoughts of recovery and getting back to his life that slowly turned into thoughts of why he was here in the first place. he just realized after a bit that he was alone in the slowly darkening room. probably should turn on a light, he figured. but he couldn't really gather up the motivation or effort to do it.

in the growing shadows he caught a glimpse of something crumpled lying on the coffee table. he'd managed to forget about those. why hadn't he noticed them before now? and why hadn't he thrown them away? why hadn't trent thrown them away? but he realized trent probably hadn't been able to any more than he was. he felt sick. he knew trent was hurting too, but all he could focus on was himself.

he decided to do what he did best lately and ignore the majority of his thoughts. instead he focused on the flower crowns lying dead and crumbling on the table. and his heart hurt for new reasons as he let himself think about before.

_"mack!" dalton called out, jerking him out of his thoughts. "dalt? you okay?" dalton stood up from where he'd apparently been kneeling behind a cluster of trees, beamed like he'd just found the most amazing thing in the world. mack had seen dalton happy before, but this was a new kind of happy. a childlike, innocent, care-free happiness that mack wanted to see on him more often. dalton just said "c'mere" and knelt back down. mack started attempting to find his way to him, making himself focus on dalton and not what might be hiding in such horribly tall grass in the field behind his old house, now just his dad's. he was about to ask what dalton was doing when he stood up suddenly, stepped out from behind the trees, holding a handful of something mack couldn't quite make out._

he wished he could go back to that moment, wished he could go there and stop time and live in that moment for the rest of their lives, forget about everything but the color of roses and the color of dalton's eyes and the color of the world and everything in it.

_"there's a rose bush back here, look at this," eyes full of awe. mack stopped short for a second, staring at the flowers in dalton's hands, before walking the rest of the way over. neither of them had seen roses up close before, at least not since they got their colorsight._

he found himself reaching for the crown, if it could even be called that anymore. it was falling apart so miserably it threatened to break in half in his hands. he held it as carefully as he had the first day he'd seen it, the first time dalton had placed it in his hands with a shy smile and a _made that for you_.

_he carefully picked one out of the little bunch filling dalton's cupped hands and turned it around between his fingers, studied it. so that's what roses really looked like. color and all. he looked back up into dalton's eyes, something he'd never get tired of. he couldn't decide which color he was more enamored with._

he stroked one of the petals with his thumb as gently as possible. still the little gray papery thing, nearly black now in the dark room, fell off into his lap.

he could barely remember what red looked like. was that the color of dalton's favorite t-shirt? or was that blue? no it wasn't blue. he'd never forget blue. could never forget it if he tried.

he touched each petal with trembling fingers and watched them all float down to his lap.

 _gray_. that was the color of dalton's favorite shirt. ironic considering it was one of the colors he could actually still see.

he let the rest of the crown drop into his lap, too, and with it the rest of his memories of something he rarely let himself think about. so that the tiny dead petals lying in his lap meant nothing, held no sentimental value. just dead roses.

black now, hardly visible in the heavy darkness that had settled around him. he still fingered them blindly, trying to jog his memory, to picture somewhere in the deep parts of his mind what they really looked like. but as hard as he tried, nothing surfaced. nothing but the things he _didn't_ want to see.

he knew he'd miss things. he knew he'd miss the words on his wrist and the fingers laced with his and the sound of the guitar he hadn't looked at in months. the smudges of eyeliner on his clothes and the feeling of someone else's heartbeat so close to his own and the way sunlight looked shining through blonde hair. the way blue never looked as beautiful in the ocean or in the sky as it did in eyes that looked at him with love.

_those eyes. those eyes that even in a world of unending color were the most beautiful thing he'd seen, those eyes that could rival the stars for all their brightness. mack wanted to spend every day of his life studying those eyes, to watch them close every night and open every morning._

_and he would, he had to keep reminding himself that he would. that this wasn't some dream, or some figment of his imagination keeping him company while he waited for his actual soulmate. this was the reality he'd waited years for, this was the reality that textbooks and teachers and his parents and trent had promised him he'd find and he'd really found it._

he knew all too well what he'd miss, and he'd been right. but he never thought he'd miss the color of roses this much.

mackenzie was tired of missing things. 

**Author's Note:**

> sorry for the mess that is this fic. you can pretend this doesn't exist if you want, it's just an alternate ending i felt like writing for no reason. writing's kind of like therapy for me and i wasn't in the _best_ place when i wrote this so that's why it's way too long and angsty and weird. but i thought i'd post it anyway. feel free to hate me x
> 
> [my tumblr](http://www.daltonxmackenzie.tumblr.com) | [my twitter](http://www.twitter.com/DALTONRAPATTONl)


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